Chapter 300: Feedback
"I think it can travel through the transmission of ether."
The words had barely left Liam’s mouth when the sensation changed.
Until then, the reaction beneath his collar had been familiar enough to recognize: pressure against the containment formations, a cold pull threaded through his channels, the unpleasant awareness of something inside him answering Felix’s palace.
Then the drone crossed deeper into the corridor.
The connection between it and the operations system strengthened.
And something followed it back.
Liam sucked in a breath.
He felt the ether moving through the live transmission—through the drone, through the relay formations, through the console beneath his hands. A thin vibration climbed his fingertips before spreading into his wrists.
The mark under his collar flared hot.
"Severin—"
He never finished.
An arm locked around his chest and hauled him backward with enough force to lift his boots from the floor. The console vanished from beneath his hands. Liam hit the stone hard on one hip, Severin turning with the fall so his own body landed between Liam and the equipment.
Mezos struck the emergency cutoff.
The room changed at once.
The low hum of the relay formations died. Several displays went black, while the main projection froze on an empty corridor washed in pale light. The drone feed remained visible for half a second longer before collapsing into static.
Liam stared at the ceiling.
Then at Severin.
"You tackled me."
Severin was already pressing two fingers against the portable monitor clipped to Liam’s collar. "Your channels reacted through the transmission."
"I noticed."
"Then you understand why you are on the floor."
Liam sat up, coat bunched around his waist, and rubbed the side that had struck stone. He did understand.
That did not make the indignity acceptable.
"You could have pulled me away like a normal person."
"You were touching the console."
"That is not a justification for attempted murder."
Mezos did not look away from the emergency readings. "You are complaining very coherently for a dead man."
Liam narrowed his eyes at him.
Before he could answer, the reinforced door opened.
Arik entered with enough force behind his ether that the shielding formations along the walls shimmered.
He had come directly from council. His fitted black coat was still fastened at the throat, gold embroidery running in a restrained line along the collar and cuffs, but his hair had loosened slightly around his temples as though he had crossed half the palace without waiting for an escort.
His gaze swept the room once from the dead relay and frozen feed to Severin, crouched beside Liam.
Liam sitting on the floor.
The alarm in the bond sharpened into anger.
Arik crossed the distance between them and crouched without speaking, one hand going immediately to Liam’s neck. Warm sovereign ether pressed through the containment formations, checking every layer with considerably less patience than the arcanists usually displayed.
"I’m fine."
Arik ignored him.
"It came through the connection," Severin said. "He reacted before we cut the relay."
That finally made Arik look toward the console.
His expression went still.
"We’re leaving."
Liam caught his wrist. "No."
Arik looked back at him.
"No?"
"We finally got a reaction through equipment instead of direct contact. I want to know what it did." Liam pushed himself upright before Arik could decide carrying him out was easier. "The connection is already severed. We have the recorded data."
"And you reacted to something crossing a supposedly safe relay."
"Exactly. Which means the relay matters."
Arik’s hand moved from Liam’s neck to the back of his coat.
Liam recognized that grip.
"Do not pick me up."
"Then walk."
"Arik."
"Eshara."
The warning would have been more effective if Liam had not caught movement on the central panel behind him.
One display had not gone dark.
The live feed was dead, but the control surface still held a residual ether charge. A thin line of light moved beneath the glass, faint enough that it could have been mistaken for the system discharging.
Except it was moving against the normal circuit path.
Liam stopped arguing.
His attention fixed on it.
Mezos followed his stare. "That shouldn’t still be active."
"It isn’t active." Liam stepped around Arik.
Arik caught his arm.
"Don’t."
"I’m not reconnecting anything."
"That was not what I said."
Liam leaned closer anyway.
The line traveled slowly beneath the panel, branching where no circuit had been drawn. It looked almost liquid, too irregular for a standard formation and too deliberate to be residual discharge.
He needed to know whether it was inside the system or merely visible through it.
Before anyone could stop him, Liam reached out and placed two fingers against the control panel.
The shock threw his hand back hard enough that his arm went numb to the elbow.
At the point of contact, ether burst into the air.
Tiny sparks scattered above the console. They shimmered strangely as they fell, each point flashing through several shades before vanishing a few centimeters above the floor.
Everyone froze.
Liam stared at his hand.
Then at the last sparks dissolving in the air.
His irritation, Arik’s grip on his arm, and Severin already moving toward him, all of it disappeared beneath one immediate thought.
That was not a normal discharge.
Liam flexed his fingers.
Nothing.
His hand hung uselessly at the end of his arm, the numbness extending from his fingertips nearly to his elbow. He could move the limb itself, but every attempt to curl his fingers produced only the faintest twitch.
Arik saw it immediately.
"Your hand."
"Temporary."
"You do not know that."
Liam ignored the hand Arik reached toward him with and stared instead at the control panel. The strange light beneath the glass had stopped moving, but a few residual sparks still snapped weakly along the edge before vanishing.
"It discharged through me," he said.
Severin stepped between him and the console before Liam could lean closer again.
"You are finished touching things."
Liam looked around him. "I touched one thing."
"And lost the use of a hand."
"Temporarily."
Arik caught Liam’s wrist carefully, turning his palm upward. Liam watched the movement rather than felt it, which was significantly more disturbing than he intended to admit.
Warm sovereign ether passed through his wrist.
His fingers jerked.
Liam’s eyes sharpened.
"Do that again."
Arik looked up.
"No."
"Arik, it reacted."
"So did you."
Liam glanced at his numb hand, then back at the dead console.
The shock had not behaved like ordinary ether.
Neither had his body’s response.